Panaji: Rifts in Goa's ruling coalition came to the fore Friday with Tourism Minister Francisco Pacheco of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) filing disqualification petitions against Congress' Public Works Department Minister Churchill Alemao and legislator Reginaldo Lourenco.

In a petition filed with the speaker's office, Pacheco claimed that Lourenco and Alemao were elected to the assembly in May last year on a Save Goa Front (SGF) ticket, but had joined the Congress without merging the party into the Congress.

"The SGF continues to be a recognised political party. There is no extinction or winding up of the SGF, making it apparent that there was no merger of the SGF with the Indian National Congress and what was done by the respondents is only giving up the membership of the SGF voluntarily," Pacheco stated in his petition seeking disqualification of the two.

The petition brings to fore the simmering tensions in the NCP and the Congress government which have cobbled a coalition government in Goa. State NCP president Wilfred de Souza has been raking up the issue of failing law and order situation in the state.

 

Source : IANS